| THE OTHER two, slight air and purging fire, | |
| Are both with thee, wherever I abide; | |
| The first my thought, the other my desire, | |
| These present-absent with swift motion slide. | |
| For when these quicker elements are gone | 5 |
| In tender embassy of love to thee, | |
| My life, being made of four, with two alone | |
| Sinks down to death, oppress’d with melancholy; | |
| Until life’s composition be recur’d | |
| By those swift messengers return’d from thee, | 10 |
| Who even but now come back again, assur’d | |
| Of thy fair health, recounting it to me: | |
| This told, I joy; but then no longer glad, | |
| I send them back again, and straight grow sad. |